


Louder than my heart

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Has Issues, Clint Needs a Hug, Deaf Clint, Deaf Clint Barton, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-08
Updated: 2014-04-08
Packaged: 2018-01-18 15:24:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1433395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When Phil’s hand starts gently, hesitantly, stroking his back, Clint can feel the unheard sob tear out, and the hand stills for a moment before resuming, a comforting presence in a harshly familiar world of silence.</i>
</p><p> </p><p>For some reason, Phil refuses to understand that Clint is worthless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Louder than my heart

**Author's Note:**

> Clint has had to use hearing aids following permanent hearing damage. In the aftermath of a particularly difficult battle, he suffers from temporary hearing loss, and Phil suddenly seems to pay him much more attention.
> 
>  **Warnings** : Implied child abuse.

When Clint wakes up, all he can hear is the dull roar of his heart thumping in his ears, indistinct faces blurring in his peripheral vision, and he closes his eyes because everything is faint, and muffled, even though his hearing aids are in, and closing his eyes always helps him concentrate.

“Clint,” he hears Phil say, and he frowns, because Phil never refers to him by his first name. He himself calls Phil “Coulson”, only using his first name in the safety of his own head, but the confusion doesn’t manage to stifle the shiver caused by hearing his name fall from Phil’s lips.

Clint concentrates harder, and harder still, because Phil’s voice is fading, and he needs to distinguish it from the beat of his own heart.

 

When Clint wakes up again, he’s drowning, and he desperately kicks and flails before realizing moments later that he’s in a bed, covered in blankets, the familiar prick of an IV in the crook of his elbow.

He blinks up at the ceiling, taking in his surroundings, recognizing the SHIELD medical bay with a brief flash of nostalgia - after all the times he’s been there, he’s pretty sure he can draw a map, to scale, of the entire facility - before sitting up to look around.

Make that trying to sit up.

Clint can’t help the low moan that falls from his lips as he sinks back into the bed, the room spinning, and the brief blur of motion at his right is not helping, thank you, and then a steadying hand grips his shoulder, and he closes his eyes and takes deep breaths until his head isn’t swimming.

He opens his eyes to Phil’s face, deep worry lines creasing his forehead, dark stains underneath his eyes. “Clint,” Phil says again, and Clint feels a gentle smile quirk his lips, because even though he can’t hear it, he can read it off Phil’s mouth, and it’s fine because he doesn’t have his hearing aids in the time.

When Phil says something else, Clint blinks, distracted enough to miss it. “What?” he tries to say, but only a murmur comes out, and that’s new, because even when his hearing aids aren’t working, he can always hear his own voice.

When he puts two and two together, something must shift in his expression, because Phil’s gaze somehow softens, and he says, slower this time, so Clint can make it out, “You’re okay, everything’s fine, you’ll be out soon,” but his eyes are still bright with worry.

Clint wants to tell him he appreciates the gesture, appreciates Phil trying to keep him from freaking out, but it’s not really working out, but when he opens his mouth again, and only muted garbles come out, he abruptly shuts it, because  _it’s happening again, just like he said._

 

_“Worthless,” he’d said, and Clint’s head had hurt from the force of the blow. “Useless, ugly, disgusting.”_

_And Clint had cried, then, but all he could hear were muffled sounds, but he could read the words falling from those lips, a litany of “Worthless, worthless, worthless,” repeated over and over until he couldn’t open his eyes and the pain-_

 

A sharp jerk to his shoulder snaps him out of his reverie, and Clint realizes what the telltale burn in his eyes means, and he turns away to bury his face in the pillow because crying never helps, crying only means more hurt, and he doesn’t want more hurt, he’s hurting enough, and the hand on his shoulder disappears, like he knew it would.

They all disappear.

When Phil’s hand starts gently, hesitantly, stroking his back, Clint can feel the unheard sob tear out, and the hand stills for a moment before resuming, a comforting presence in a harshly familiar world of silence.

He stays there for who knows how long, eventually turning back up towards the ceiling, but Phil is always there, and even though the rational part of Clint’s mind knows he must leave sometimes, because he has to drink and eat, Phil stays there, even when the doctors bustle around him, even when Natasha appears, only the pain in her eyes betraying her worry, keeping vigil alongside his bed.

Even in the times when Clint wakes up in the middle of the night, with screams ripping out of his throat, Phil stays there, and Clint falls back to sleep with the reassuring weight of Phil’s hand on his shoulder.

 

\---

 

“You’ve been here for three days,” Natasha informs him, speaking with a steady speed he can easily read, when she’s escorting him out, one step behind him and half a step to his left, prepared to help him in case anything happens.

Temporary hearing loss, the doctors had told him, via Phil, but Clint knows it’s not going to be temporary, because it’s never been temporary before and it’s not going to change now.

“So has Coulson,” she adds, then, almost an afterthought, and Clint feels his heart clench with loss at realizing that Phil is going to call him Barton from now on, because he’s better. There’s no reason for Phil to keep treating him with tenderness and care, now.

He’s got his hearing aids in, and now he can tell the difference with them and without them, but it doesn’t matter because he still can’t hear words over the crashing of his heart inside his chest.

When they pass over the threshold of the building, Clint is unsurprised to see a black car - SHIELD’s colour scheme isn’t very inventive - waiting for him at the curb, but when Phil steps out to open the door for him, something catches in his throat.

Clint decides not to analyze it, not to dwell on why having Phil - Coulson - take care of him sends little sparks shooting down his spine, or why Phil - Coulson, dammit - would want to take care of him in the first place, because Clint’s worthless when he’s broken, damaged like this, without his hearing.

No one likes him when he’s damaged. He’s learnt that lesson well.

He bites back on another burst of surprise when, instead of moving back to the driver’s seat, Phil - Coulson, for fuck’s sake - slides into place beside him, buckling his belt nonchalantly, as if his shoulder and his knee aren’t pressed against Clint’s.

Clint lets himself stare at Phil - that’s it, he gives up - for a moment, before resolutely tuning out the not entirely unwelcome warmth of Phil’s touch and buckling himself in as well as Natasha settles herself behind the wheel.

The ride passes unbearably slowly and incredibly quickly, because, as every torturous moment passes, Clint fights to ignore his inexplicable urge to lean into Phil and tug him close, but it’s over before he can completely bite down the impulse as Natasha deftly makes a sharp turn off the road.

The sudden movement jostles Clint and Phil together, sending tingles of heat all the way down Clint’s side, but only a moment later, the car stops, and Natasha lopes out into the empty - Cap’s motorcycle is there, make that near-empty - carpark, with a slight jerk of her head.

Clint would have been insulted, but he knows Nat, and more importantly, Nat knows him, and she knows that Clint needs a while to process, to build his walls back up, because otherwise it’s just too raw and painful and it’s easier to run, and giving him space to recover his barriers is about as openly affectionate as Nat gets.

If Clint hadn’t been privy to every single one of Phil’s nuances for the past ten years, he would’ve said Phil turned to him, then. However, since he has, in fact, mastered the art of reading Phil’s tells, brief as they are, he notices the slight hesitation before Phil looks over at him.

“Are you okay?” Phil asks, and Clint is about to answer but Phil’s eyes are so warm, so tender, his resolve crumbles, huffing out in a breath. He wants to lie, because that’s what he does, pastes a grin on and pretends everything is okay, but he can’t lie to Phil, has never lied to Phil, so he shakes his head.

He barely misses Phil’s eyes fractionally widening, but Clint’s out of the car and halfway to the elevator before Phil finishes struggling with his seatbelt.

 

\---

 

When he stops at his floor, all he does is grab his bow and quiver, and he rushes back to the elevator before the doors close and hurriedly keys in the number for the indoor shooting range Tony had designed especially for him.

Let it never be said that Tony Stark wasn’t generous.

When the doors open again, he presses the button to close the doors before hurrying out, knowing Phil could track the elevator from the ground floor, hoping he’d think Clint went to his room and stayed there, and slips out through the small gap.

“JARVIS,” he knows he says, even if what he hears is indistinguishable muffles, “Please change the setup to long-distance accuracy.”

After a moment, he adds, “And get me a balancing beam in an hour.”

As the floor reconfigures around him, the hum of complex machinery reverbrating through the soles of his feet, Clint takes in a breath and feels the most relaxed he’s been since the sonic explosion.

Shooting arrows is something he knows he can deal with.

 

\---

 

Raise and draw, fire. Exhale.

Clint fires arrow after arrow after arrow, unconcerned with speed, led by the natural rhythm of his breath.

After emptying his quiver for the third time, he gathers the arrows, grimacing at how far off target some of them are. His worst is nearly a 3 inch difference, and Clint knows that in a life or death situation - he’s been in too many of those by now - missing by 3 inches spells death loud and clear.

When he turns to head back behind the firing line, he stops abruptly, breath catching in his throat.

Nat’s sitting in the bleachers, but that’s not important, because Phil’s sitting in the bleachers as well, blue eyes carefully following Clint’s movements, and he raises his hand in a solemn wave before returning to his observations.

Clint can feel his cheeks heating under the intense gaze, but Phil makes no move to get up or go away, and the shooting range is free for everybody to use, so he decides to just ignore the two of them.

After he realizes he’s been holding his drawn bow with the same arrow for the past five breaths, distracted by the weight of the stare drilling into his back, he decides that ignoring Phil Coulson is easier said then done.

A soft, mechanical murmur comes from the ceiling, and Clint looks up before realizing JARVIS is saying something, and then he remembers he asked for a balancing beam when the floor rises underneath his feet, providing a makeshift elevated platform.

He decides to stop worrying about his aim, because the main issue here is his balance. Even though he doesn’t feel dizzy anymore, ear injuries always throw off his balance, a lesson that’s been imparted to him time and time again when the Trickster would deny him his evening meal after a particularly harsh beating the day before.

As Phil impassively watches, Clint carefully treads along the beam, feeling it give slightly under his boots. So apparently the floor can change textures. You learn something new every day.

Kicking off his shoes, Clint agilely strips off his socks, and nearly laughs aloud when he straightens back up, feeling the familiar grip of a beam underneath his soles.

Acrobatics is another thing he knows he can deal with.

Again, he turns to the target, taking a deep breath, but as he draws his bow, he moves into one of the basic forms Nat drilled into him only a few months after they had met, after he’d been suitably impressed by her singlehandedly dealing with three guards.

Phil had been suitably impressed as well, but considering he’d taken out an entire compound of soldiers armed with only a ballpoint pen and his own tie-

Clint halts the thought there. Phil staring at him is distraction enough, so he lets his mind flit back to the memory of Nat teaching him to fight the way she herself was taught.

 

_“Focus, Дурочка,” she said, fondly naming him an idiot, his arms already itching to move back to the standard SHIELD-taught position. “If you want to fight alongside me, you cannot be predictable.”_

 

“Is this predictable?” Clint asks, loudly enough for the words to cut through the heartbeat in his ears, before springing into action, firing arrow after arrow, shifting from position into position, feeling the wild thrum of the bow under his fingers, and for a moment he’s whole again, for the first time since waking up in the hospital, because he knows this.

He was trained in a circus, after all.

As he progresses through the steadily more complex routines, he can feel rather than see Natasha’s mouth quirk, the closest she ever gets to laughing, and when he empties his quiver, firing his last arrow with a backflip, he straightens with a flourish, turning to the bleachers, only to find Phil halfway out of his seat, an arm extended ineffectually.

He stares at Phil, and Natasha stares at Phil too, because Agent Phil Coulson is always composed, and Clint doesn’t even need to focus his (admittedly near-superhuman) eyesight to see the faint flush creeping up their handler’s cheeks..

After a few heartbeats tick by, Phil sits back down, face falling back into an impassive mask, and Clint shares a glance with Natasha. He was expecting her to raise an eyebrow, but instead, she’s... smiling. Smiling tenderly, affectionately, but it’s not only directed at him, it’s directed at Phil as well, and seeing Nat smile breaks every single law of Clint’s world, so he mechanically heads to the target, collecting his arrows, discarding the ones split down the middle from multiple bullseyes, and quietly escapes the room, leaving Phil and Natasha behind him.

 

\---

 

He’s lying back on his bed, staring listlessly at the ceiling, when the door slams open and Tony’s there, and the racket he’s making is so loud Clint actually has to clap his hands over his ears because it’s making his hearing aids hurt.

When he remembers to look at Tony’s mouth, it’s moving at a mile a minute, but he can still catch, “...You were hurt?” and “...The hell happened?” and “Listening?” and “Answer!”

Clint attempts to smile, but it feels fake and dead on his face, and Tony stutters to a halt, so Clint uses the opportunity to point at his ears and shake his head.

Tony stares at him for all of three seconds before his face falls and he doesn’t need to know how to lipread to see him mouth, “Oh, shit.”

And then Tony’s surging towards him and dragging him by the arm, and pulling him out of his room to the elevator, and Clint’s pretty sure he’s making sounds in protest but he can’t tell because all he can hear is his heart thumping, and when the door of the elevator closes, Tony turns to him, and he’s talking again, but Clint can feel his eyes burning because he can’t understand, and he’s helpless, and worse, he’s worthless, like always, like Barney used to scream at him-

And then Tony’s hand is on his chin, guiding his eyes up, and Clint blinks, because Tony’s mouth is saying the same two words, over and over, slowly and clearly.

"Friend."

"Fix."

 

\---

 

Clint does his best not to move as Bruce pulls away from his head, withdrawing an apparatus that looks eerily similar to a pair of tweezers before turning around and fiddling with something on his desk.

When he turns around, he’s holding a tablet up.

 **Like the doctors said, it’s temporary** , Clint reads. Bruce holds up a finger, tapping on the screen with his other hand, and more words scrawl themselves across the screen.

**It should wear off in a few days, which is probably why SHIELD didn’t bother modifying your hearing aids, but Stark Industries has recently been developing products along the same line and Tony could easily fix it.**

Clint blinks, then looks up at Bruce, whose eyes are shining with sympathy. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” he says, clearly enunciating every word to make it easier for Clint to read, but Clint shakes his head.

“I want to.” he says, and he doesn’t care how garbled it sounds, how muffled it sounds, because he felt his mouth make the words and from the tiny smile Bruce is trying to hide, his message came across loud and clear.

The door slams open, and Tony’s standing there, armed to the gills with robots and mechanical implements, and Clint belatedly realizes he was listening at the keyhole when Tony strides towards him with glee lighting his features, and tries to fight the urge to run away screaming.

 

\---

 

After a few minutes of Tony fiddling around him, taking his hearing aids out, tinkering with them, and putting them back in, his army of robots handing him tools and none-too-gently repositioning Clint, moving his head and pulling at his ears, Clint notices Steve sitting in a chair beside Bruce, the two of them observing him with something really close to wonder.

“It’s amazing.” Steve says slowly, and from Bruce’s grimace, loudly as well, and Tony gives him a hurried thumbs up before tapping something on Clint’s hearing aid, and placing it back in his ear, and with a jolt, Clint realizes Tony’s humming.

He can hear Tony humming.

“Not done yet,” Tony huffs, and Clint realizes that of course Tony knows what he’s thinking, because he’s the one fixing the aids, and he can’t help but smile at the man.

“Thank you.” Clint says, and he doesn’t even bother stopping the laugh that wells up in his throat when Tony freezes, looking frazzled, before brushing it off and going back to work, and the laughter dies in his throat as Clint wonders why being thanked is such a foreign concept to Tony.

He nearly misses Nat slinking into the room, settling herself in the opposite corner to Steve and Bruce, but she doesn’t call him out on it like she usually does, just taking in her surroundings before settling down and watching Tony do what he does best.

After a few more minutes, Tony moves backwards, holding the hearing aids up to the light and his robots retreat, Dum-E emitting a high-pitched squeal that elicits a wince from everyone in the room including Clint.

With a satisfied nod, Tony hands it to Clint, before briskly picking up the bots in one swift movement and teetering out of the room before Clint has a chance to thank him again.

He stares at the contraption in his hand, and realizes that, at some point or another, Tony managed to make it purple, and he feels his heart clench when he looks up, seeing his team sitting around him, because when he gets better, they won’t bother to pay attention any more, they came to see Tony in action.

Like Bruce said, Tony was working on hearing aids himself, and he just cut into the time Tony could have spent developing his own model instead of just fine tuning Clint’s. Clint’s been a nuisance.

The realization causes his chest to clench up.

He ducks his head when he feels his face flush, because he’s been here before, done this before, and Clint’s still managed to forget the message that he had drilled into Clint:  _You don’t interrupt work._

 

_It’s unfair that he has to work all day just so he can feed Clint, so he’s allowed to make it fair however he wants._

_Clint never fights back, never makes a sound, because it’s his brother, and he knows best, and, like he says, Clint is worthless._

_Clint doesn’t get a say. All Clint gets to do is get beaten._

 

“Птичка,” Nat says. Little bird, she calls him. The sudden sound brings him back to the present, and he’s unprepared for the empathy reflected in her eyes. “You are not a burden.”

Steve and Bruce, who’ve apparently moved closer as well, nod their heads, and Clint shakes his head, because he knows it isn’t true, because he is a burden, and they only put up with him because he’s good with a bow, and the moment he gets hurt, he’s dragging them down.

Steve extends a hand, pulling Clint to his feet, and Bruce graces him with another tiny smile before shepherding them out of his lab, Nat leading the way, closing the door behind them, and Clint feels a stab of guilt knowing Tony wasn’t the only person he was disturbing.

“Clint,” Natasha says again, but he holds up a hand, and Steve takes in a breath to say something, and Clint knows because he can hear it, but Nat turns to him and the expression on her face is enough to make Steve hurriedly close his mouth.

“Phil is at SHIELD.” she says, gripping Steve’s shoulder, pulling him with her, away from Clint. “I will tell him to go to your floor when he comes back.”

She leaves without waiting for an answer, and Clint knows that he should be happy, because he’s finally fixed, and he’s valuable to the team and to Phil again, but he keeps remembering how Phil had sprung out of his seat, how he had lost his composure, and it sparks a feeling Clint has done his best to keep hidden for the past few years, so he bites it back and ducks his head and takes the elevator back to his floor.

 

\---

 

“Phil Coulson is here to see you, sir,” JARVIS informs Clint, as he’s methodically dicing vegetables.

“Let him in.” Clint says absently, before realizing exactly why Phil is there, but before he can think better of it, Phil is already striding in, freezing when he sees Clint in the kitchen.

Clint feels his mouth dry, and to break the sudden tension, he smiles weakly. “Tony upgraded my hearing aids,” he says, and Phil’s shoulders sag with relief, and he takes a step forward closer to Clint, and then he stops again.

Clint carefully places the knife on the cutting board, because the only time he’s seen Phil with that expression was the time Phil discovered Fury had told the Avengers he had been killed in the fight against Loki, when Phil told the Fury he could go fuck himself and somehow managed to clear the Avengers, himself included, for a month's leave.

“Clint.” Phil says, and for a moment, Clint can’t breathe, because he’s fine, he’s whole, he’s okay now, but Phil is still using his name, the single word resonating through the room.

“When I saw you get hurt, I was... really worried.” Phil takes a step closer, and another, and Clint tries to back off, because Phil doesn’t notice what he’s doing, and it’s impolite to push into someone else’s personal space, and he finds himself with his back against the counter, Phil standing directly in front of him, blue eyes peering searchingly into his own.

“Clint,” Phil says, again, and takes a deep breath. “Do you remember the first thing you said to me after the battle?”

Clint nods, but his mind is reeling, because the first words Clint had said to Phil when he’d come back was, “Good to have you back, sir,” but the first thing Clint said was when Phil was unconscious, pale and unmoving, lifeless arms hooked up to monitor after monitor, the bandages on his chest stained the angry crimson of blood.

 

_“Come back,” Clint had said, tears streaking down his face. “I need you,” he’d said, and then admitted the dark secret he’d done his best to hide before. “I love you.”_

 

Phil levels his gaze at Clint. “I remember it too.”

Clint looks away, because he’s not ready to deal with it yet, he’s not ready to deal with it ever, but Phil doesn’t take no for an answer. “I was terrified you would hurt yourself, back on the firing range today.”

Clint looks everywhere but Phil’s face, settling on Phil’s fingers, clenching and unclenching.

“I know it’s sudden, but you’ve been upfront with your emotions, so I’d like to inform you that the feeling is mutual.” Phil’s voice softens, and he leans even closer. “I’m in love with you, Clint.”

Clint looks into Phil’s eyes, then, and what he sees reflected back at him is enough to halt the words in his throat, but he forces them out anyway.

“No.”

Suddenly he can breathe again, and it’s blessed relief for a moment, but the way Phil’s face falls sends an aching pain through Clint’s chest, and he still stares Phil down because Phil Coulson cannot be in love with Clint Barton, no matter how much Clint Barton loves Phil Coulson, because Clint is worthless and Phil deserves so much more.

And when Phil turns away, Clint, in a moment of weakness, lets his defenses crumble, because he’s hurting too much to keep his walls up, and Phil chooses that exact same moment to turn back around.

Phil blinks, and his eyes narrow, and Clint recognizes that look as the look Phil gets when he’s identified the obstacles preventing him from achieving his aims and is currently devising ways to circumvent them. But that’s silly, because Clint isn’t stopping Phil from doing anything, because Phil doesn’t love him.

“I love you, Clint.”

Clint gapes at him, and Phil stares at him resolutely, eyes icy, but Clint manages to regain control of yourself. “You can’t.” he manages to say, and inwardly cringes when Phil’s eyes soften, because that was too close to honesty.

“I say I can, and I say I’m in love with you too.” Phil replies, tone calm and even, and Clint drowns him out, and ignores him, because Phil can’t, no one loves Clint, Clint needs to stay quiet and listen because he’s worthless and no one ever will ever love him.

That’s what they said.

“No.” Clint says, and he pushes Phil away, and he walks out of the kitchen, and out into the hall, and he goes into the elevator, and as the doors close, he sees Phil wave at him, with a soft, sad smile, and Clint’s heart doesn’t break a little bit at all.

 

\---

 

Clint doesn’t go back to the shooting range, he goes down to the common floor, eerily quiet without Thor singing odes to his poptarts, and sits himself down on the sofa, flicking the TV on and scrolling mindlessly through Tony’s catalogue of films.

When a familiar hand gently taps his shoulder, Clint whips around, already prepared to take whoever it is down, but then he realizes it’s Phil, and that Phil is holding up his other hand in surrender, a pristine white sheet flung upwards in place of a flag, the same bittersweet smile on his face.

“Here.” is all Phil says, and he extends the folded document towards Clint. Clint ignores it, so Phil unfolds it, revealing a printed paper stamped with the SHIELD seal, and quietly begins reading.

“SHIELD Fraternization Regulation 64-BE - Exception,” he begins, and Clint nearly jumps up from the sofa, but Phil’s hand rests on his shoulder, gently restraining him, and Clint takes the papers wordlessly from Phil, reading through them.

The words blur together in front of his eyes, but Phil points at the bottom line, and Clint focuses enough to be able to read, “Hereby, I allow agents Clinton F. Barton and Phillip J. Coulson to engage in a relationship,” with a slot for a signature at the end, and he sees Fury’s unmistakeable scrawl.

When Phil flips the page around, Clint’s heart clenches when he sees the other signatures. Tony’s embellished copperplate, Bruce’s chickenscratch, Nat’s mechanical handwriting, Steve’s tiny drawing of a shield, and when he sees a slot marked simply with “Thor”, awaiting the god’s return from Asgard, the rest of the page blurs, his eyes stinging, and Phil withdraws it.

“I love you, Clint,” Phil says, and his hand is rubbing Clint’s back, the same comforting patterns that kept him sane through those days in medical. “I’ve loved you for a long time, and I don’t care how long it’ll take me to convince you.”

All Clint does is look at him, and with a single, adept movement, he rips his hearing aids from his ears, letting them fall uselessly onto his lap.

“I’m damaged, Phil,” he feels himself say, and he feels a burst of vindicated triumph when Phil flinches at his slurred words, almost enough to offset the sinking loss pooling in the pit of his stomach. “I’m damaged, and I’m broken, and I’m worthless, and all I’ll ever do is drag you down.”

And when Phil stares at him with wide blue eyes, Clint turns away, because he doesn’t need to hear to know what’s coming next. They all realize it, sooner or later, and all he’s done is speed up the process.

He doesn’t bother bracing himself for the blow, because he’s been hit enough times to know that it’s inevitable, and when Phil’s arms encircle his shoulders he feels a surge of panic because he’s never been-

Phil pulls him close, and Clint’s breath leaves him in a sharp gasp when Phil hugs him, nuzzling his face in Clint’s shoulder, and Clint feels his mouth trace the same thing over and over on his skin.

I love you. I love you.

And when Phil pulls back, Clint’s startled to see Phil’s crying a bit as well, and it’s jarring because Phil never cries, not even when he’s stabbed cleanly through the chest by the staff of a rampaging god, and he says it again, his lips moving slowly.

When he places the hearing aids back into Clint’s ears, he makes no move to stop him, and Phil takes a deep breath.

“You’re not my responsibility.” Phil says.

Clint feels his face go numb, and starts turning away, and as Phil grabs at him Clint closes his eyes, because he knew it, he knew Phil was only letting him down gently, and that does nothing to bridge the void eating through his chest.

“No, Clint, look at me,” Phil pleads, and Clint’s eyes snap open out of reflex because he’s never heard Phil so vulnerable, so raw and aching, and Phil’s eyes lock on to his. “You were never my responsibility. I never cared for you because I had to. I stay with you because I want to.”

He ducks his head, and Clint stares, because this isn’t happening, this doesn’t happen, he just showed Phil how useless he is, and how broken, he can’t keep on loving Clint now.

“You’re never a burden,” Phil says, and his hands are shaking when he grips Clint’s shoulders. “You’re never worthless, you’re never useless. When I worry about you, it’s not because you cause trouble, it’s because I care for you. And Clint-”

Phil’s voice cracks, so Clint stops his words by pulling him into a kiss, because it’s the only way he can make Phil quiet, but Phil doesn’t go silent, he moans, and melts into the kiss, willingly submitting to Clint, and Clint has to pull back hurriedly because if he keeps kissing Phil he won’t be able to stop.

“Clint,” Phil says again, and smiles, and the only way Clint can describe it is loving. “You’re the strongest person I know.”

Clint can’t help his resigned sigh. Tony is brilliant, Bruce is just as smart, Thor is the fucking god of lightning, Steve is a brilliant tactician trapped inside the body of a titan, Nat is the fucking Black Widow, and Phil is... Phil. Clint is just a good sniper, and when you take that away, what else does he have to offer?

Phil shakes his head, as if he’s read Clint’s mind. “You’ve gone through hell and back,” he says, low, rough, and Clint wants to point out that no, he hasn’t, he’s just taken a few hits, but Phil plows on. “You’ve got permanent hearing loss because of your own brother, and you’ve undergone things that- If I find the people that-” he stops, taking a deep breath, and keeps going, “But you can still smile, you can still function, you can still laugh. You can still love.”

Clint doesn’t know what he wants to say. “I-”

The words die in his throat, and Phil watches him, and Clint tries, he tries his best, but it’s so fucking hard to deny his attraction, and he can’t help it, and he knows it’ll only end in heartache, but he really wants to believe Phil loves him.

He can’t let himself believe. It only hurts more.

After a moment, Phil wordlessly places the document on the table, drawing a pen from his pocket and with delicate precision, signs his name with a quick flourish - Phillip James Coulson - right underneath Fury’s signature before handing both the sheet and the pen to Clint.

Phil doesn’t say anything else, but it doesn’t matter, because Clint remembers now, that in the decade they’ve known each other, Clint hasn’t lied to Phil, and Phil hasn’t lied to Clint either. And before he realizes he’s done it, he’s signing the paper, writing his full, legal name, Clinton Francis Barton, underscoring it with a shaky stroke.

When he turns to Phil, the emotion filling the other man’s eyes sends his heart racing, and those blue eyes drop to Clint’s lips when he wets them with the tip of his tongue, and asks, his voice cracking at the end, choked and raspy from unshed tears, “You love me?”

Phil’s eyes flick back up to his, wide, and hopeful, and his mouth slowly, tentatively curves into the most tender of smiles. “If I say yes, will you stay?”

Clint pulls him into another, softer, kiss, and for the first time in his life, lets himself believe.

 


End file.
